60 replies to this topic

[KahnWongFuChung]

Lets just say I would love to see a PGI sales chart for each month or a year since the start of the game it would say a lot about the state of MWO overall plus a true actual player count.

The reason I posted this topic is to see how many players feel PGI'S MC prices are Crazy or everything is overpriced 50% or more.

I look in the MWO store or Steam items and I just cant bring myself to buy the items when I feel paying such high prices for a virtual item is insane.

If MWO'S MC items were 50% or more less and inline I would buy a lot of stuff but after 3 years I just cant buy items I feel are too over priced no matter how much I would like to have them.

I know some will agree and some will say its all relative to the fun you have with the virtual items you buy but lets hear what you have to say about MWO'S MC prices not criticism about me.

P.S and to those poor players that pay up and above the America USD prices lets hear what you have to say also.

Edited by KahnWongFuChung, 22 February 2016 - 10:49 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

It's not so much that things are overpriced it's that there appears to be no thought into the pricing model.

Buy a mech for what 1500-3000 MC (at work don't have the game to cite a particular example)

Buy a cammo Colour 1000MC....(really..colours should be cheap and pushed in volume!)

The other one that annoys the crap out of me is MC-Cbill packages. The prices the for cbill amount is absolutely shocking... Its like PGI don't want money.

Let the whales flex their wallet to get cbills they don't have the time to farm/shorten the time it takes. Cbills cost them nothing to create this is something so basic and pure profit that could be shipped in bucket volumes making them so much money.

[Dread Render]

retail businesses work by purchasing in bulk at a wholesale price and selling at a marked up retail price.
... i don't know but I guess MWO needs to make more Mechs for people to buy.

But yes... I think their prices are to high.

Edited by Render, 22 February 2016 - 11:01 AM.

[sycocys]

Price model appears to be working just fine - you heard they are funding a 100k tourney in a few months didn't you?

[Mister Blastman]

Buy sixty bucks worth of MC. Buy nothing but mechbays.

Done.

That's all you need to ever do.

[KahnWongFuChung]

DV said (Buy a cammo Colour 1000MC....(really..colours should be cheap and pushed in volume!)

The other one that annoys the crap out of me is MC-Cbill packages. The prices the for cbill amount is absolutely shocking... Its like PGI don't want money. )
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I can agree more on Camo patterns or colors on patterns I would not mind paying such high prices if I could use them on all my mechs or they were like real cheep to buy.

On the C-bill packs your right PGI could have a WIN WIN situation with this because if they were so cheap to buy more players would buy them and hackers and exploiters 99% would disappear becouse why exploit and hack when you could buy C-bills and MC items so cheap? =(WIN WIN FOR PGI)

[Sandpit]

Many players have said the same thing since they opened the store. They aren't going to change it though. Many feel they would increase their revenue stream exponentially by adjusting their MC pricing a bit.

WIth that said, a few tips.

Never buy a mech that isn't on sale unless you "need" it at that moment because they run sales so often it makes no sense to spend full price on anything.

Everyone is excited about decals, but based on history, they're going to price out at about the same pricing as camos so they'll be far too expensive to be a steady stream.

PGI forgot the micro part of microtransactions.

[KahnWongFuChung]

Sandpit said (Everyone is excited about decals, but based on history, they're going to price out at about the same pricing as camos so they'll be far too expensive to be a steady stream. )
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I have like 1000 decals from MechWarrior2-MechWarrior4 Mercenaries in a folder I would love to use in MWO on my mechs but your probably right it will be to expensive to buy decals or if you could import your own decals per MC cost it would be to much.

But we can hope for changes
http://www.moddb.com...cenaries/addons

[Sandpit]

KahnWongFuChung, on 22 February 2016 - 11:40 AM, said:

Sandpit said (Everyone is excited about decals, but based on history, they're going to price out at about the same pricing as camos so they'll be far too expensive to be a steady stream. )
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I have like 1000 decals from MechWarrior2-MechWarrior4 Mercenaries in a folder I would love to use in MWO on my mechs but your probably right it will be to expensive to buy decals or if you could import your own decals per MC cost it would be to much.

But we can hope for changes
http://www.moddb.com...cenaries/addons

Russ said customs are "being looked at", apparently being able to upload a custom image is a very complex issue...

[Khobai]

Quote

Everyone is excited about decals, but based on history, they're going to price out at about the same pricing as camos so they'll be far too expensive to be a steady stream. )

well if decals work anything like camos then it will be stupid. because youll have to buy the decal for every single mech you own. which would be utterly ridiculous.

colors, camos, and decals should ALL be one time purchases. buy them once and use them on ANY mech.

even if they have to raise the cost to make that happen... thats preferable to the current way camo works.

Edited by Khobai, 22 February 2016 - 12:03 PM.

[LegendaryArticuno]

I have 60 million cbills saved up for sales... wish they didnt spam them back to back because now there's a draught.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Continuous income is their lively hood. They are in it to make money like any company. I'm sure they have set the prices where they know they will make the most money and not just set prices arbitrarily.

Make things cost too low, and many buy it, but the lower cost still equals less income. Price it too high and too few buy it, and earnings are less. I would think after years of business, they found the median sweet spot.

I'm also sure they hire analysts who specialize in this type of business model to help them establish these prices. There has been a lot of data collected on this game's spending and other games like it, that have helped establish the most profitable price.

Besides, for the people who won't spend these amounts, there are always sales.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 22 February 2016 - 12:13 PM.

[sycocys]

Sandpit, on 22 February 2016 - 11:58 AM, said:

Russ said customs are "being looked at", apparently being able to upload a custom image is a very complex issue...

By complex he means - "Someone would actually have to be in the office and on the clock to deal with this."
Its complex because he actually has to deal with his accountant and pay payroll taxes for an employee.

Or it could just be automated and we could just live with the fact that 50% of the uploads are going to be low rate renders of someone's johnson on a tiny little decal (1:1 size ratio, or 2:1 for some folks) that will get lasered off before anyone but your teammates have a chance to see it.

Uploading images has been simple since 1995 and Geocities webpages lol.

[Chuck Jager]

Buy the smart stuff like starter packs or individual mech packs. The $20 dollar urbie pack throws the urbies in after you get the premium time and mech bays. The $40 dollar Mad pack is what I used for my alt account and the 3R(S) has been named "Money Printer".

Most Gyms cost $15-30 per month just to set foot in, with F2P look as cost like popcorn in a theater.

You can get bling easily throughout the year (colors, camo and horns etc). If you got to have an individual mech, color or camo that is not on sale, I see those folks like the one who buy lottery tickets and pay taxes on cigarettes.

[Sandpit]

sycocys, on 22 February 2016 - 12:16 PM, said:

By complex he means - "Someone would actually have to be in the office and on the clock to deal with this."
Its complex because he actually has to deal with his accountant and pay payroll taxes for an employee.

Or it could just be automated and we could just live with the fact that 50% of the uploads are going to be low rate renders of someone's johnson on a tiny little decal (1:1 size ratio, or 2:1 for some folks) that will get lasered off before anyone but your teammates have a chance to see it.

Uploading images has been simple since 1995 and Geocities webpages lol.

Because no other online multiplayer game has allowed custom images before...


I love it when a company like PGI tries to use that as some sort of legitimate reason against something like this. It's rather simple. Set up rules (hello ToS and CoC) about decals.

If a player violates those rules, they lose their decal and aren't refunded the cost of it and if it's a repeat offender, you get into more serious penalties.

All the "but offensive" "but copyright" "but legal reasons" is a bunch of BS. If we were talking 20 years ago players might be ignorant, young enough, and otherwise oblivious enough to believe something like that, but thanks to 20 years of life experience (including gaming), I know for a fact that it's just an excuse not to do it because none of those reasons have stopped or slowed down any other company from doing the same thing.

PGI should contact companies behind games like Warthunder and Star Citizen because those devs apparently are clueless to the "danger" of allowing players to customize their vehicles...

[sycocys]

Armored Core - those guys actually just built into the game a pixel editor and let you create whatever you wanted. Whether you played it online or not.

Seriously - how hard would that be? Some guys did it on a playstation game 10+ years ago, I'm sure the code for something like it is open source so no one in the studio would even have to put all that much effort into it.

Edited by sycocys, 22 February 2016 - 12:36 PM.

[C E Dwyer]

Sandpit, on 22 February 2016 - 11:58 AM, said:

Russ said customs are "being looked at", apparently being able to upload a custom image is a very complex issue...

linden labs with second life have been doing it for years and with far more complex items than a few bumper stickers

Edited by Cathy, 22 February 2016 - 12:35 PM.

[Lupis Volk]

Sandpit, on 22 February 2016 - 12:32 PM, said:

PGI should contact companies behind games like Warthunder and Star Citizen because those devs apparently are clueless to the "danger" of allowing players to customize their vehicles...

Yeah in War Thunder people used the custom skins to make historic german planes.

Though Call of Duty should be another game to look at with user generated "decals".

"give them an inch and they take a mile"

[Sandpit]

Cathy, on 22 February 2016 - 12:35 PM, said:

linden labs with second life have been doing it for years and with far more complex items than a few bumper stickers

Trust me I know, I've made quite a chunk of change in SL over the years. I made decent RL money making custom tats for quite a while before I started DJing there.

Oddly enough?
Not once did I ever hear Linden talk about "doing away with custom uploads due to copyright issues"

Lupis Volk, on 22 February 2016 - 12:36 PM, said:

Yeah in War Thunder people used the custom skins to make historic german planes.

Though Call of Duty should be another game to look at with user generated "decals".

"give them an inch and they take a mile"

I forgot about Black Ops. Yup, created tons of custom logos there as well.

[Thunder Child]

While I agree that the Camo is overpriced for a full unlock, the One Shot is actually very fair (and all I use).
The colors are heavily overpriced as well, and most cockpit items.
However, mechbays are very fairly priced, and the Mechs are comparable to other games (World of Vehicle charges $60+ for their higher tier Tanks/Ships).
And the Pre-purchase packs come with a lot of content (comparatively) for $20, if you order it early enough. Compare that to WoT, or Warcraft, and it's not bad. Not great, but not bad.
They really just need to make the cosmetic stuff a little cheaper. Even the Color unlocks are for EVERY mech you own. It's just the Patterns that are over the top for a single Chassis Line. Maybe introduce a "One-Shot" Color usage for, say, 50MC?